Brought on by the steady rise in mobile users and usage worldwide, mobile user experience (or Mobile UX) has become a major focal point for many digital marketers. It essentially encompasses how customers experience a mobile app while they’re active in the app itself. With the goal of offering a smooth and user-friendly UX, mobile UX is something which must be continuously optimised. Especially if businesses wish to maintain a loyal and satisfied customer base. This is where the collection of in-app feedback comes in handy.
Collecting mobile feedback is slightly different from that of websites. The difference lies mainly in the way that feedback forms are run. For example, a lot of the triggers such as exit intent and mouse movement are no longer detectable in mobile apps.
So what is it exactly that in-app feedback can do for your mobile user experience? Let’s take a look.
- What is mobile UX?
- Why should I collect in-app feedback?
- Different ways of collecting in-app feedback
What is mobile UX?
Mobile UX stands for mobile user experience and refers to the overall experience your users have on your mobile app or website. (Not to be confused with mobile UI, which refers to user interface and is more focused on the visual parts of creating a user-friendly app.)
Creating a good UX for an app versus a mobile version of a website differs quite a bit, however. When it comes to the website mobile view, you want to apply the “mobile first” mindset. This means that you create your website with the mobile version in mind, ensuring that menus, text and imagery are easy to navigate and read on small screens. When this is done, you move on to bigger devices, like tablets and desktops.
Meanwhile, UX in-app refers to the overall user experience of your app. Since this is something that’s built separately from a website, the approach to creating a good user experience is different – especially when it comes to collecting feedback.
A mobile version of a website can essentially use the same feedback forms that you use on your website. When you have an app, however, you need to use different feedback forms. This is because:
- Likely, your website and app don’t have the same purpose
- The customer journey differs between the two channels
- You have different triggers for feedback forms in your app
In other words: Collecting user insights in-app is not the same as collecting website feedback. But what are the benefits of collecting in-app user feedback? Well, it can have a huge impact on your overall mobile UX, let us tell you how.
Why should I collect in-app feedback?
There are lots of reasons to collect in-app feedback. We’ve picked the top four reasons why we think you should start collecting in-app feedback, today. Let’s dive in!
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A guide to in-app feedback for mobile product owners
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User insights keep you in touch with how your app is performing
In-app feedback can give you specific and pointed insights. It is ideal to collect user feedback when you’ve just launched (or intend to launch) a new feature or an update for example. Checking in on what your users think at times like this allows you to keep a temperature on if the feature or update performs as you intended.
According to the Lean Start-Up methodology, applying short feedback cycles before building a product (also known as minimum viable product) is the key to creating a truly successful product.
These cycles enable you to continually test out ideas in your app by collecting feedback from customers (or other parties, such as buyers and partners) and using that feedback to make further improvements and enhance the app. Users can help you catch bugs, optimise the customer journey, identify customer preferences (like payment or delivery methods) and develop your product roadmap. All things that in the end will help your conversion.
It’s cost-effective
Developing a mobile app can be an expensive undertaking. Adding new features and altering existing ones can be quite costly if these decisions are based on presumptions alone.
By collecting in-app feedback from customers who have experienced your app first-hand, you will be much better equipped to make meaningful changes to your app.
In-app feedback allows you to get to know your users
In addition to providing you with insights into the customer journey and how your customers are experiencing the app, in-app feedback can also provide you with detailed information about these customers. You can collect data such as demographics, browser type, OS and more.
Having this information on hand enables you to form personas (or classifications of users). If you cross analyse personas with other feedback results (such as Net Promoter Score, Customer Effort Score or Customer Satisfaction) you’ll be able to create, not only a more personalised experience for your customers, but also develop an app you know they’ll like.
You can efficiently prioritise your roadmap
Many businesses who are building a new mobile app have tons of exciting features on their roadmap. Developers tend to get ahead of themselves sometimes and start rolling out features all at once. However tempting this is: hold your horses. Implementing too much too fast can be overwhelming for your app users. Not only that, but it can also cause quite a bit of chaos in the UX department. Try starting off little by little, and test as you go. Most importantly, listen to your customers and what they have to say, so you can identify which features are most important.
Different ways of collecting in-app feedback
Recognising that the collection of in-app feedback can be valuable to your company is one thing. Doing something about it is another. With native and hybrid apps (this does not include mobile-optimised websites), there are three ways in which feedback can be collected: Webviews, API posts and SDKs. Which method you should choose depends on you and your business. You can read more about these three different ways of collecting feedback in our blog about feedback templates for your mobile app.
How you choose to collect feedback in-app from a technical perspective is only part of the bigger picture. Another equally important aspect is choosing what kind of feedback forms you launch and what their purpose is.
So where should you start? Let us give you a helping hand! Here are three examples of impactful ways of collecting in-app insights that can improve your mobile UX.
3 feedback examples to improve your mobile UX
There are a plethora of feedback strategies you can use to gain insights from your mobile app users. But keep in mind that in-app feedback forms do lack some of the triggering options that website feedback forms have, like exit intent or time spent on page.
This means that the insights have to be collected through different methods. But where do you start? Well, allow us to get your creative juices flowing! Below, you’ll find three tips for collecting feedback in-app that will have a positive effect on your mobile UX.
Fake door testing – Check the demand for a feature before you build it
Fake door testing is essentially a technique that measures the demand for a feature or service without you having to build it. It means that you invite your customers to use a feature that is not yet live. When they click on the feature, you display a feedback form saying something along the lines of:
“Sorry, this feature is not yet available but we want to take your preferences into account when developing our product. Could you let us know how much this feature would improve your experience?”
Of course, the exact phrasing depends on both the feature and your business. You can also ask your users how they would use the specific feature to help you understand the customer journey better.
Fake door testing is a technique that can save you both time and money by:
- Ensuring that you don’t build features that aren’t in demand
- Helping you understand your customers and creating features that are tailor-made for them
Creating features that are desirable and well-crafted keeps your customers happy and increases the overall mobile UX of your app.
General Feedback – Continually check customer satisfaction
General feedback forms are usually accessed through the navigation menu in your app. These are important as they allow your users to continually give you feedback on whatever they might have issues with. These feedback forms generally collect a large amount of feedback, allowing you to identify trends that can improve your mobile UX. Not to mention the fact that they allow you to keep track of your customer satisfaction.
These kinds of feedback forms usually also allow for visual feedback, meaning that your users can leave a screenshot together with their comments. This is extra useful when it comes to reporting bugs as it helps your developers recreate issues that the users encounter. Something that can be pretty tricky using only textual data.
In-app chats – Steer your users in the right direction
Conversational feedback forms have become increasingly popular in the last few years. These forms essentially look like a chatbot. They have pre-programmed greetings and options that the user can interact with.
There are a few benefits of conversational surveys:
- The more casual way of communicating with your brand builds rapport and trust
- They typically have higher response rates than traditional feedback forms
- They allow you to steer customers in the right direction
Conversational surveys are a user-friendly way of providing your customers with the help they need. Do they have questions about an order? Steer them to customer success. Do they want to know about delivery options? Have an answer that leads to the FAQ page.
Of course, conversational feedback surveys are also perfect for collecting general feedback or bug reporting. The beauty of these forms is that you can provide your users with a lot of different options.
Those were the tips! Hopefully, you feel inspired to start building your own feedback forms and optimising your mobile UX. Are you looking for powerful software to launch your surveys with? We got you covered!
Optimise your mobile UX with user feedback today
Mopinion is the #1 Feedback Software for web, app and email. Collect and analyse your in-app mobile feedback in one place. Mopinion for Apps is equipped with sophisticated in-app targeting, a wide range of customisation options and easy data analytics at your fingertips. Want to try it out for yourself? No problem! Feel free to click around and start building feedback forms with our 14-day free trial period. Or book a demo to chat with one of our feedback specialists. The choice is yours!
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